Dear God

Directed by Garry Marshall, Dear God follows Greg Kinnear’s Tom Turner as he and several fellow postal employees begin answering letters addressed to god. Filmmaker Marshall, armed with Warren Leight and Ed Kaplan’s screenplay, delivers a palpably overlong yet mostly affable comedy that benefits from its assortment of appealing attributes, with, at the top of that list, Kinnear’s tremendously charming and completely engaging performance going a long way towards smoothly over the various narrative deficiencies. (It’s clear, too, that Marshall elicits compelling work from a pleasantly eclectic supporting cast that includes Laurie Metcalf, Jon Seda, Donal Logue, and Toby Huss.) There’s little doubt, then, that Dear God‘s inability to consistently hold one’s wholehearted interest and attention stems from its 112 minute running time, as the padded-out atmosphere results in a handful of fairly needless digressions and a courtroom-based finale that seriously wears out its welcome – which does, in the end, confirm the picture’s place as a passable endeavor that could’ve used some aggressive streamlining.

**1/2 out of ****